SRIMAD BHAGAVATAM 1.12.12

TRANSLATIONThereupon, when all the good signs of the zodiacgradually evolved, the heir apparent of Pandu, whowould be exactly like him in prowess, took birth.

PURPORTAstronomical calculations of stellar influencesupon a living being are not suppositions, but arefactual, as confirmed in Srimad Bhagavatam.

Every living being is controlled by the laws ofnature at every minute, just as a citizen iscontrolled by the influence of the state. Thestate laws are grossly observed, but the laws ofmaterial nature, being subtle to our grossunderstanding, cannot be experienced grossly.As stated in the Bhagavad-gita (3.9), everyaction of life produces another reaction, which isbinding upon us, and only those who are actingon behalf of Yajna (Visnu) are not bound byreactions. Our actions are judged by the higherauthorities, the agents of the Lord, and thus weare awarded bodies according to our activities.

The law of nature is so subtle that every part ofour body is influenced by the respective stars,and a living being obtains his working body tofulfill his terms of imprisonment by themanipulation of such astronomical influence. Aman's destiny is therefore ascertained by the

birthtime constellation of stars, and a factualhoroscope is made by a learned astrologer. It isa great science, and misuse of a science doesnot make it useless. Maharaja Pariksit or eventhe Personality of Godhead appear in certainconstellations of good stars, and thus theinfluence is exerted upon the body thus born atan auspicious moment. The most auspiciousconstellation of stars takes place during theappearance of the Lord in this material world,and it is specifically called jayanti, a word not tobe abused for any other purposes. MaharajaPariksit was not only a great ksatriya emperor,but also a great devotee of the Lord.

Thus he cannot take his birth at anyinauspicious moment. As a proper place andtime is selected to receive a respectablepersonage, so also to receive such a personalityas Maharaja Pariksit, who was especially caredfor by the Supreme Lord, a suitable moment ischosen when all good stars assembled togetherto exert their influence upon the King. Thus hetook his birth just to be known as the great heroof Srimad Bhagavatam.

This suitable arrangement of astral influences isnever a creation of man's will, but is thearrangement of the superior management of theagency of the Supreme Lord. Of course, thearrangement is made according to the good orbad deeds of the living being. Herein lies theimportance of pious acts performed by the living

being. Only by pious acts can one be allowed toget good wealth, good education and beautifulfeatures. The samskaras of the school ofsanatana-dharma (man's eternal engagement)are highly suitable for creating an atmospherefor taking advantage of good stellar influences,and therefore garbhadhana-samskara, or thefirst seedling purificatory process prescribed forthe higher castes, is the beginning of all piousacts to receive a good pious and intelligent classof men in human society. There will be peaceand prosperity in the world due to good andsane population only; there is hell anddisturbance only because of the unwanted,insane populace addicted to sex indulgence.

His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~What follows is a report by Basu Ghosh Das,concerning a large conference on Cosmology ,held in Baroda, India in 2010.

Parampara108@Hotmail.com~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Global Conference on Cosmology @ BangaloreBY: BASU GHOSH DAS

Dec 11, 2010 — BARODA, INDIA (SUN) —Following is a short report on the recently held "GlobalConference on Cosmology" at Bangalore, attended andaddressed by three ISKCON devotees: Rasaraj Prabhu of the BI(Berkeley/Bombay), Basu Ghosh das (myself), President,ISKCON Baroda, and Antardwip Prabhu of the BhaktivedantaAcademy, Mayapur.

There are more than 500 photos of the conference that appear

in our gallery. IskconBaroda.com

Devotee Scholars Attend Cosmology ConferenceBy Basu Ghosh das

A "Global Conference on Cosmologies – Perspectives of theUniverse" took place from December 2-4, 2010, at BangaloreThe conference was organized by the Srinivas Jyotish VigyanResearch Foundation, founded and headed by Sri Dev NathAcharya, and headquartered at Srirangam, Tamil Nadu.The conference venue was the auditorium of the NationalInstitute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), located on the campus ofthe famed Indian Institute of Science, established more than acentury ago.The invited speakers were accommodated in the NIASguesthouse adjacent to the auditorium.The conference was inaugurated by Karnataka Chief Minister(functional head of the Government of Karnataka), theHonorable Sri B.S. Yeddyurappa. In his inaugural address heexpressed his pleasure of being present at the conference as wellas expressing the importance of the knowledge of the ancientIndian literatures.The keynote address was presented by Dr. G. Madhavan Nair,the former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization,ISRO, the Indian Government space exploration agency. Hepresented a slideshow depicting ISRO's "Chandrayaan" projectthat launched an unmanned research vehicle into outer space,and its findings.The rest of the 3-day conference was a series of sessions inwhich various invited academics discussed Cosmology in itsvarious aspects from different perspectives.The list of prominent speakers included Professor B. V.Sreekantan, the distinguished High Energy Astrophysicist, Dr.Smita Jha from the humanities department at IIT Rourkela, , Dr.Jarita Holbrook from UCLA, Rasaraj das, Director of theBhaktivedanta Institute, Prof. M.A. Lakshmi Thathachar of theSamskrit Foundation, Prof. M. Venkata Krishnan, Head of theDept. of Vaishnavism, Madras University, Sri. R. Ganesh, "shataavadhani", Prof. K. Ramasubramanian, Presidential Awardeefrom the Humanities Department at IIT, Bombay, and Dr.Priyadarshana Jain, Head, Dept. of Jainism, Madras University.The readers of this would be particularly happy to learn thatthree ISKCON devotees, Basu Ghosh das (yours truly, President,ISKCON Baroda), Rasaraja Prabhu (AKA Prof. Ravi Gomatam,

Director, Bhaktivedanta Institute, as well as Director for thenewly formed Institute for Semantic Information Sciences andTechnology [ISIST], Berkeley/Bombay) and Sriman Antardwipdas (Bhaktivedanta Academy, Sridham Mayapur), were invited tospeak, and each gave a talk and submitted written papers at theconference.Rasaraja Prabhu's talk was titled "Toward a possible newmathematical conception of space to understand Puraniccosmology scientifically." He started by pointing out thatBhagavat descriptions of cosmology seem to defy common senseperception and modern scientific observations, as in describingthe height of the Himalayas as 80,000 miles (SB 5.6.19).He then showed how his own original research in developing anew field of physics called Macroscopic Quantum Mechanics(MQM) opens the way for a new conception of space in bothscientific and commonsense thinking that can fit Bhagavatdescriptions nicely. One of the attendees, a physics teacher,later said that while many other attempts to link Vediccosmology to modern science were weak, "your talk alone madeattending the conference worthwhile for me."

Basu Ghosh das, who's talk was entitled "The Cosmos and it'sdepiction in the Temple of the Vedic Planetarium: presenting theBhagavat concept of the Universe to the World" first of allpresented a short movie displaying the design concepts of theTemple of the Vedic Planetarium at Mayapur.He then explained how ISKCON was founded to propagate theVedic concepts, knowledge and dharma around the world.ISKCON's Founder-Acarya Srila Prabhupada conveyed the clearconception of the origin of the universe based on both theMahabharata – in the Bhagavad-gita – and the SrimadBhagavatam, the Bhagavat Mahapurana.He also commented that Prabhupada and the Vedic traditionteaches that the Vedas, Itihasas and Puranas are true historyand not mythology. He expressed surprise that a number ofIndian scholars accept the Western contention that this is allfalse, and that they accept the "wild speculation" of the "bigbang" theory of the creation of the Universe.He presented more than sixty slides showing the Bhagavatconception of the creation and the universe, Srila Prabhupada'sdesire to construct the ToVP, Srila Prabhupada inspiringAmbarish Prabhu (Alfred B. Ford) to finance the ToVP, andpictures of the ongoing construction of the ToVP at Mayapur andsection plans of the ToVP. He also presented a few interesting

details about the construction of the ToVP, such as the fact thatthe ToVP will be supported by two thousand seven hundredpilings that have already been made, and that in the pilingsstainless steel was used instead of regular steel, etc.Antardwip Prabhu spoke on the topic: "On reconciling Puraniccosmologies and Surya Siddhanta." He pointed out that whilePuranic cosmologies give a description that presupposes subtlerplanes of perception, the Siddhanta texts describe a cosmologymore akin to present common sense perception, and how bothdescriptions can be reconciled.Rasaraj Prabhu chaired one of the nine, one and a half hoursessions, and Basu Ghosh das also chaired one session.Some of the other topics presented at the conference: AfricanCosmology, Pre-historic observational astronomy in India,Creation – Shrishti Vignana [presenting the vedic concept ofcosmology], Physics of Rotating and Expanding black-holeuniverse, Metaphysics and modern Science, Cosmogony andspace from rock arts, Cosmology of Sankhya-yoga, Reconcilingaspects of Darshanas [the six ancient Indian philosophies] andmodern physics, The esoteric cosmology of the Vedas, AncientIndian Cosmology – observational perspectives, How did IndianAstronomers predict the celestial events accurately?, Cosmologyin ancient art, Cosmology in Sanskrit folk literature, Indianastronomical tables with special reference to the South Indianpractices, Cosmic geometries of holy places of North India, JainCosmology and it's application for conscious evolution,Cosmology and Agama [shastras], Cosmology according to thePuranas, and Cosmology and Sankhya.Concluding the program, the Honorable former Justice of theSupreme Court of India, Sri M.N. Venkatachaliah gave thevaledictory address. Thereafter, concluding remarks werepresented by the NIAS Director, Prof. V.S. Ramamurthy.The proceedings of the conference containing all the papers willbe published in the near future by the organizers.Copyright 2005,2010, HareKrsna.com. All rights reserved.